Is Riven and Kat too strong??

GypsiEater·Mar 6, 2015·9 votes·915 views

I am only creating this discussion due to my frustration with the two champs mentioned above. Katerina is one of the most played champions ever and has her weaknesses when countered early, same as Riven, but as soon as either one of these champs has a couple levels or so above the rest of the team, it becomes impossible to get rid of them. I've been in matches where Kat swoops in with her Ult. and gets a pentakill within 5 seconds....... I've never really played either of them very much, but I am interested to see if others on these forums have the same frustrations as me.

15 Comments

King OdinMar 6, 20156 votes

In low Elo yes, for sure.

But when in low Gold or High Silver I find they stop being as good since people learn how to play against them a little better.

Master Yi used to be the master of low elo but then fell out of popularity because people learnt how to counter him fairly easily. Akali used to be the same thing. Now to win well with Akali and Yi you must have a good grasp of the character because people learnt how to counter them rather well and counter pick.

I always find Katarina an issue since she can lose lane 0/4 then accidentally get kills in a team fight and snowball. But, she is high risk if the Katarina player doesn't know how or when to engage, she is really useless if she ults in but is cc'd instantly. It's all about timing and awareness when playing against Kat, but overall she isn't a problem if you know how to control your cc.

Riven is either really good or really bad. If she gets kills because her laner decided to 1 v 1 her early then two things can happen. She continues killing top and roams mid and ends up snowballing. Or she is always pushed and her laners jungler ganks her and shuts her down as often possible. Usually Riven's don't take summoner 12 in the lower elo so they end up losing minions and this sets them behind. Also Riven is actually harder to play than it may seem since without her auto cancels she is a lot weaker in general meaning you just need to know when to engage and how long to engage for. Inexperienced Riven's tend to E to gap close to you, so what you want to do is move back and wait the shield out and when it goes out engage hard. This really makes laning against her easy but if you engage when she shielded herself then you are basically setting yourself up for failure.

TL;DR Overall I think if they were to be nerfed anymore then they would be useless in the higher elo's since they already have plenty of weaknesses which can be exploited.

GypsiEaterMar 6, 20151 votes

thumbs up for great reply :)

King OdinMar 6, 20152 votes

Thanks!

AltricadMar 6, 20152 votes

^ Good response. I might also add that since Riven doesn't have any ranged poke, early game bullies like Darius and Renekton are great counters to her as well.

A well played Irelia can beat her situationally.

But, for some reason I've never seen a "good" katarina player lose :C

They always get triple kills/quadra kills unless her laner keeps thrashing and killing her each time she shows up

mvargusMar 6, 20152 votes

I've seen Katarina's both good and bad. Just a couple nights ago I took Xin Zhao jungling (2nd time on Xin) and we had a Katarina midlane. I'll admit I found this Kat had very poor map awareness and didn't place wards. By the end of the game I was 17/11/15, my team's mid (a Vladimir) had gone 19/4/8 and poor Kat was 1/13/10. She was ganked early and often.

I'll admit I felt sorry for this Katarina player as they obviously thought like so many posters here that Kat was freelo and she had just discovered that a pair of skilled players willing to exploit her mistakes could destroy her.

I've also had games where Kat gets going and my team has little to no CC so we end up watching helplessly as Kat gets to 20/2/4 before the 30th minute no matter how well we did in lane.

Both champs can be problematic to handle if you don't have teamwork with your jungler and if you aren't careful with your play early, but both are also really weak if they don't manage to feed on kills. If you avoid feeding them early and remember to focus them mid-game so they can't sneak into teamfights to get a few kills, they eventually fall so far behind as to be a non-issue in most teamfights, and if you team can turn teamfights into 5v4 affairs because Riven or Kat is unfed you will win the majority of them.

Chaotic ReksMar 6, 20151 votes

ALL HAIL THE HOLY Shen !!! STOMPING RIVENS AROUND THE WORLD THROUGH HIS INFINITE SUSTAIN!!!

AikkiMar 6, 20152 votes

They're supposed to be strong when they get ahead. The thing is that it's way easier to cheese at level 3 as Riven and get ahead than get ahead with Katarina, whose damage is laughable early game. Well, atleast from what I've seen and experienced.

N3mO06Mar 6, 20152 votes

I have the same problem, like they are play with other rules: they don't have enough weakness or they aren't enough situational like other champs like renekton, rengar, garen who don't have mana.

ModKnightsKemplarMar 6, 20152 votes

As a frequent Kat player, I am somewhat biased.

But I have also been steamrolled by Kat. And when I am, I know why, and I know how to fix it. She DOES have counterplay. People just expect that they don't need to save stuns, that they can 5v5 teamfight and beat her, etc. That's not how you win against Kat.

You have to try a strategy other than "bunch up a lot and fight where she can easily penta you." If Kat gets a penta, it's because you were in a position to allow it. Straight up. Don't let it happen.

Mikal PikalMar 6, 20152 votes

I don't think either champion is overpowered when compared to other solid picks. Both are very kill dependent and if you hold them down in lane they are not very powerful later on. Kat has absolutely no CC and is very one-dimensional. If you avoid letting her kill you in lane (which is not that difficult) and make sure to ward the river and tell your team mates to do the same, she shouldn't be too big of an issue. You just have to be hyper vigilant in your pings. She sucks in lane for the most part so if you prevent her from getting kills by roaming then she will not be an unstoppable pentakill machine. Low elo she dominates because people don't ward and afk push lane to enemy tower. Make kat waste her time roaming and don't give her that level 6 double kill.

Her damage will be decent if you hold her down in lane, but she is squishy and easily CC'd. Run away if you are almost dead and she won't get her reset which significantly reduces her effectiveness.

That all being said, I still ban her and riven because you have to rely on your teammates to avoid a single mistake. A single mistake can cause either champ to snowball out of control.

The other thing is that mid usually picks first in solo queue. Kat is easily countered by cc so if they pick kat, you can pick lissandra or annie and absolutely demolish her.

KarfussMar 6, 20152 votes

Riven

Riven is broken when played mechanically well. Nothing you can do. R-Q-AA-Q-AA-Hydra-AA-W-AA-Q-R in the same time it takes someone new to Riven to perform R-QQQ-Hydra-W-R. The first will 100-0 your Mundo in seconds and the second will be beaten by just about anything. Problem with nerfing her is that you kill her overall viability for those not mechanically great. Riot needs to shift all her power from her auto attacks (her main source of damage) into her abilities to remove this huge mechanical gap while also hitting her mobility.

Katarina

The only thing truly broken about Katarina is her passive and itemization. She's two extremes;

Dive in, press R and hope you don't get a CC heading your way.
Become the cleanup crew after or towards the end of a team fight.

The largest issue is itemization for Katarina. Hybrids became a thing of the past because AP and AD will never be equal both in price and ratios, so one will always be statistically better. Katarina is the last of the line of Hybrid champions and no item works for her ideally. Gunblade? Active scales off of AP and if you build AP, your Sinister Steel and auto attacks become almost pointless. Lichbane? Same problem as Gunblade. Rageblade? Pointless. She channels her ultimate.

Building full AP forces you towards this all-in ultimate or nothing while making part of your kit useless. Building full AD is the exact same but making your Bouncing Blades useless and your Shunpo do no damage. Doing nothing and cleaning up safely afterwards is unreliable.

There is no middle ground. The store needs more hybrid items (unlikely) or Katarina needs shoving towards one of the two so that she can utilize ALL of her kit instead of the vast majority of damage output coming from her R.

Now, for the passive. This is an issue because it cannot be balanced in the traditional sense. It isn't like you can reduce/increase range, damage, cooldowns like a normal ability. This passive allows a fed Katarina to become unstoppable because a single kill will chain to an ace if you're all within a 700 range from each other (her maximum Shunpo range). This passive needs removing and her cooldowns need lowering dramatically to make up for it.

Katarina was built on what worked at the time of her creation, yet there was no thought of where you could balance her should she require it. This is why there are two fundamental issues with Katarina (One that appeared over time: itemization and an old passive that clashes with the balance standards today) and why a rework to her entire kit or her ratios is highly probable.

Elk WhispererMar 6, 20151 votes

I think Riven is absolutely garbage.

You can actually just auto her out of lane in your creep wave and she'll lose the trade simply because she gets 1hp/5, its pathetic.

HolidayyyMar 6, 20151 votes

Riven needs nerfed to where shes a glass cannon with less mobility or retains her mobility but deals less damage. Right now she basically gets the same damage Fiora does with a bunch of utility added on. She is incredibly strong even if the player isn't good and overwhelmingly strong when the player is good. I personally can't stand the champion and always ban or request that she gets banned.

Kat is kind of tricky. I think she needs more of a rework so that she doesn't snowball as hard and gets some kind of added utility in return or maybe adding some kind of skill shot/combination to achieve the same damage (like the new fizz) to her so that she isn't so brainless. Kat is basically the last of the good faceroll assassins, she needs changed to where you really need to master the champion and play well to get your damage in (Like Leblanc/Zed) Right now shes just what Fizz used to be.

A bad Leblanc on your team is a terrible experience, a bad kat is more like "meh whatever she still has the chance to press R at the right time in a team fight."

SleepyLionCubMar 6, 20151 votes

Id much rather fight an enemy Riven than an enemy Irelia

Id much rather fight an enemy Katarina, than an enemy Nidalee

Both champions dont use mana, but its not like they WOULD use a ton if they had costs anyways. They are specific classes "fighter and assassin" who typically have spammable abilities even when they have mana costs, thus it just makes them weaker as a whole.

Kat cant do any damage without her ult because she doesnt have resources, and needs something keeping her out of Leblanc level damage. Riven cant have health regen because she cant have Irelias sustain, while being manaless.

overall both of these champions are WEAKER because they dont have mana costs.

GypsiEaterMar 6, 20151 votes

I agree with a lot of what you guys had said below, it's true that if u harass Kat in midlane get a couple kills early its not such a bad deal... i can usually poke her quite a bit with Viktor and if Im jungling Udyrs bear stance can get her down fast, yes her ult can be stopped which is great. So after reading all this I suppose my frustration is just in the inability for players to counter her properly, and or just dont have the patience to do some turret hugging.....urhg. I almost forgot but since we're on the topic what do you guys think about Blitzcrank, he's also up there on the high play list to annoyance ratio, (since I'm not as high of level as some of the rest of you), do you find him played quite a bit as well in the higher leagues and if so what's the plan when u face him????

As for the Riven comments I agree theres usually two types of RIven players, ones whove played Riven quite a bit and know how to combo bully you and others who fail at the concept.....LOL lower tier struggles.